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Trump Orders Audit of Postal Service After Suggesting Amazon Is To Blame For Their Troubles (politico.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Postal Service to undergo an audit Thursday evening, a move that comes after president's repeated claims that Amazon is fleecing the USPS through alleged unfair business practices. "The USPS is on an unsustainable financial path and must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout," reads the executive order Trump issued shortly before 9 p.m. While not explicitly mentioned in the order, the president has hammered e-commerce giant Amazon in recent weeks and alleged that the company and its CEO Jeff Bezos are driving the USPS into the ground. "I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy," Trump wrote on Twitter on April 3. "Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne by the American Taxpayer." According to the executive order, a task force comprise of top officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who would chair the group, will lead the investigation into the USPS' finances and will be required to issue recommendations and a final report no later than early August.
No. I've read articles pointing that the picture is much worse.
Does the USPS pay real estate tax? No.
Does the USPS pay market rent for the property used? No.
Does the USPS pay the water and sewage?
Does the USPS pay the tax on their electricity. (Take a look at the tax on your electric bill.)
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Trump bloody hates Bezos because he owns the Washington Post, which regularly publishes factual information.
Fixed that for you.
There is a good article on it at https://psmag.com/economics/th... Its part of the reason why it is cheaper for consumers to buy directly from overseas than from a local shop ... especially items under 2kg.
While everyone agrees that Amazon sucks, I don't understand how they're abusing the post office.
Do they get a sweetheart deal that drops them below cost? If not, the delivery is profitable.
Do they get a deal that's substantially better than the deal UPS gives them? If not, the deal is not corrupt.
If there's even a deal at all. But I haven't heard anyone claim that USPS loses money on average delivering for Amazon (other than the President, who is a well known pathological liar).
USPS Pension fund is not funded by payroll deductions.
The pensions are funded 75 years out, if employment slows down, fewer beneficiaries to fund, payments to retirement fund will go down. If USPS stopped hiring employees today, and everyone remained in the pension system, never left before vesting, never died before receiving benefits, etc. there would be no need to make any payments to the fund for 75 years - that's what it means to be 75 years funded.
Ken
it's a half a billion people on the government's payroll
No it's not. It is exactly zero people on the government's payroll.
The USPS does not get any tax dollars.
When people can retire and set their kids or grandkids to be beneficiaries, then you have a real problem as they will be paid in full for far longer than 75 years.
You literally made that up, USPS retirees can't designate their kids or grandkids as beneficiaries for their retirement payments.
Ken
In Canada, there's no law on the books governing abortions at all; it's a decision between a woman and her doctor.
That said, there are almost no third-trimester abortions. The only times where it might happen are when the fetus has already died. Women that carry the baby to the third trimester nearly universally WANTED the baby. There's no reason to outlaw the practice since it's only done for medically necessary reasons.
Contrary to the belief of anti-choice advocates, women that get abortions aren't doing them unnecessarily or capriciously. There's a litany of reasons why a woman might make that choice, but honestly, it's nobody's business but hers. A woman has bodily autonomy, and to deny that gives her less rights than a corpse. (This is literally true; you cannot use a dead person's organs without their prior consent, which is why you need to sign your organ donor card.)
Because, there are people we can ask, much better qualified than YOU, called Doctors, and they can tell us when it is unnecessary to torture a mother whose baby has formed non-viably by forcing her to keep the corpse in her belly until "term".
Article I establishes that Congress has the right to establish a governmental postal service (Section 8) but does not mandate that one be established. If Congress wants to privatize (or even abolish) the USPS it is perfectly within its rights to do so.
Yes, it has been established the USPS's biggest problem is their need to pre-fund all their pensions for the next 75 years. There's also an established Republican desire to privatize USPS, probably so some private equity firm can suck that pension fund dry and discard the useless husk. If you want to preserve the USPS, get ready to fight to defend it.
Can we get rid of this bullshit Media Matters description? Reality doesn't look like left-wing propaganda.
This originated with the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006", H.R. 6407. It was a bipartisan bill with wide support from both Democrats and Republicans. It had nothing to do with partisan bullshit. It passed by voice vote in the House and unanimous support in the Senate. It forces the USPS to fund its pension fund like all other federal agencies so that they don't have to be bailed out.
It was a few years after passing that the left starting claiming it was a Republican bill meant to destroy the USPS. Neither is true.
Do you have ESP?
Even if the USPS was in the red, it's still an incredibly valuable and critical piece of public infrastructure and should be well funded. Yes, even at a net loss. If we can light $600+ billion on fire every year to fund the most powerful military in the world, we can throw a few pennies at the postal service.
Here's the thing, and I say this as a libertarian. Well, let me show you something:
http://constitutionus.com/
Scroll down to Article I, Section 8, paragraph 7. It's short, I'll put it here:
(The Congress shall have Power) To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
It's actually in the Constitution! This is a fully legal part of the federal government. This isn't the Department of Education.
The founders recognized that this was a really important function of the government, so important that they put it in a list of only 18 areas over which the federal government has legal authority.
I'm glad the USPS funds itself, but I don't care, actually. It's a very important thing to have around and we need to protect it, even if that means throwing a little money at it now and then.
That said, it also needs to fulfill its pension obligations.
Do you have ESP?
https://about.usps.com/careers/working-usps/benefits.htm
The Postal Service participates in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program, which provides excellent coverage and flexibility with MOST of the cost paid by the Postal Service.
The Postal Service participates in the federal retirement program, which provides a defined benefit (pension), as well as disability coverage.
As a result of all this, the USPS has about a $100 billion unfunded pension liability - backstopped completely by the US taxpayer.
Now go ahead and tell me the USPS isn't costing the taxpayer a dime.